Module 5

Specific performance and injunctions: when a court orders a person to act or stop

Money cannot always put things right. A buyer who has contracted for a particular house wants the house, not its price. A family living beside a factory wants the noise to stop, not a cheque each year for putting up with it. A business whose secret recipe has been taken wants it protected, not to be paid for its loss and then see its competitor keep using the recipe. In these cases the court may order the defendant to act or to stop acting. The orders are specific performance, which compels a party to perform a contract, and injunctions, which forbid or require conduct. They are called coercive remedies because they work on the person: a defendant who disobeys can be fined or imprisoned for contempt. They are also equitable and discretionary, which means that the court asks not only whether the claimant has a right but also whether an order is fair, practical and in the public interest. This module sets out the gateway, the grounds for and against each order, how interim injunctions work (the stage at which most injunction cases are actually decided) and how the orders are enforced. It uses the Equitable Remedy Checker for practice, and all the people and businesses are invented.

General education on civil remedies, using invented cases, businesses and people. It states common principles in simplified form and does not describe any one country's law, which differs and changes; rules on damages, punitive damages, costs, limitation periods and enforcement in particular vary. It is not legal advice, and it does not replace the instruction of a law school or advice from a qualified lawyer.